Kafka on the Shore
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  • Published: 3 October 2005
  • ISBN: 9780099458326
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 512
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

Kafka on the Shore

Formats & editions
Paperback
3 Oct 2005
Hardback
15 Nov 2022
EBook
10 Oct 2011
Audiobook
29 Oct 2020
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Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky... A bewitching and wildly inventive novel from a master stylist

*PRE-ORDER HARUKI MURAKAMI’S NEW NOVEL, THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS, NOW*

Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy.

The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down.

As their parallel odysseys unravel, cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since World War II. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle - one of many which combine to create an elegant and dreamlike masterpiece.

*Murakami's new book Novelist as a Vocation is available now*

'Wonderful... Magical and outlandish' Daily Mail

'Hypnotic, spellbinding' The Times

'Cool, fluent and addictive' Daily Telegraph
  • Published: 3 October 2005
  • ISBN: 9780099458326
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 512
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

About the author

Haruki Murakami

In 1978, Haruki Murakami was twenty-nine and running a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo. One April day, the impulse to write a novel came to him suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won a new writers’ award and was published the following year. More followed, including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but it was Norwegian Wood, published in 1987, which turned Murakami from a writer into a phenomenon. His books became bestsellers, were translated into many languages, including English, and the door was thrown wide open to Murakami’s unique and addictive fictional universe.

Murakami writes with admirable discipline, producing ten pages a day, after which he runs ten kilometres (he began long-distance running in 1982 and has participated in numerous marathons and races), works on translations, and then reads, listens to records and cooks. His passions colour his non-fiction output, from What I Talk About When I Talk About Running to Absolutely On Music, and they also seep into his novels and short stories, providing quotidian moments in his otherwise freewheeling flights of imaginative inquiry. In works such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, 1Q84 and Men Without Women, his distinctive blend of the mysterious and the everyday, of melancholy and humour, continues to enchant readers, ensuring Murakami’s place as one of the world’s most acclaimed and well-loved writers.

portrait photo of Haruki Murakami

Also by Haruki Murakami

The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Norwegian Wood
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland
Men Without Women
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Vintage Classics Japanese Series)
1Q84
See all

Praise for Kafka on the Shore

Wonderful... Magical and outlandish

Daily Mail

A magnificently bewildering achievement... Brilliantly conceived, bold in its surreal scope, sexy and driven by a snappy plot... Exuberant storytelling

Independent on Sunday

Cool, fluent and addictive

Daily Telegraph

Hypnotic, spellbinding

The Times

Addictive... Exhilarating... A pleasure

Evening Standard

Murakami's most addictive fix to date

Independent

Engrossing and wildly inventive

Times Literary Supplement

Laden with philosophical overtones and enchanting wit

Observer

Murakami's exquisitely simple prose and deft evocation of the surreal are captivating and sublime

Sunday Times

The mysteries are never tainted by explanation, merely beautifully described, delivering a hypnotic read

Times Higher Education Supplement

Wonderful... Magical and outlandish

Daily Mail

Cool, fluent and addictive

Daily Telegraph

Hypnotic, spellbinding

The Times

A magnificently bewildering achievement... Brilliantly conceived, bold in its surreal scope, sexy and driven by a snappy plot... Exuberant storytelling

Independent on Sunday

Addictive... Exhilarating... A pleasure

Evening Standard

Murakami's most addictive fix to date

Independent

Engrossing and wildly inventive

Times Literary Supplement

Laden with philosophical overtones and enchanting wit

Observer

Murakami's exquisitely simple prose and deft evocation of the surreal are captivating and sublime.

Sunday Times

The mysteries are never tainted by explanation, merely beautifully described, delivering a hypnotic read

Jamie Sims, Times Higher Education Supplement

Discover more

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QUIZ: Which Murakami book should you start with?

Never read Murakami and wondering where to begin? Take this fun quiz to figure out which book you should read first.

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